


Days Like Lost Dogs

by fullborn



Category: True Detective
Genre: Homophobic Language, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Period-Typical Homophobia, spoilers for pretty much all of s3, tom deserved better, we deserved more roland so here he is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-11-06 16:41:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17943422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fullborn/pseuds/fullborn
Summary: ‘You think this makes me happy?’ Tom asks, expression unreadable.‘Well it damn well don’t make you miserable,’ says Roland. It doesn't make him miserable either, not by a long shot.





	Days Like Lost Dogs

**Author's Note:**

> I can't believe the writers seemed to be going there and then...didn't...so here's some Roland/Tom to fill out the timeline gaps. Some vague canon divergence but nothing that doesn't stand up in court. Enjoy!

 

Roland drinks. It’s not like the dogs judge; that’s one of the things he likes about their company. He could fall down drunk every damn day and as long as he remembered to fill their bowls with kibble they’d be waiting for him, tails wagging, looking up at him like the sun shone out of his fucking ass. 

The only dog that ever hated him had been his first — that is, the first he managed to bring home — now long dead and buried in the scrubby bushes behind the house.He remembers how he found her, matted and wild, too thin to struggle against the chain that tethered her to a single spike in the barren ground; how he had nearly beat those boys before he freed her (fucking boys with no sense and too much time and firecrackers on their hands); how she had bit and clawed and scratched his arms to pieces rather than let him lay hands on her. 

‘I don’t even like dogs,’ he had told her where she sat trembling in the backseat with rage and fear. ‘But I reckon you got nowhere else to go.’ And if she reminded him of another lost, curly-haired, dead-eyed stray, why that was too foolish a notion to entertain. Had nothing to do with it. He tells himself that she’s the first stray he ever took home, but he knows that to be a fucking lie. 

The only thing Roland gets in return from that ornery bitch is a lesson that he already knows, and that rankles. ‘Bottoms up,’ he grunts to the patch of earth where her skeleton lies, and takes a sip of his morning whiskey. Pours a tot onto the ground, for her, before making his slow way back up to the house. Some things don’t want to be saved.

 

* * *

_ '85 _

‘Who called in the fuckin’ calvary?’ says Tom, but his voice quivers and snaps like a tight-strung banjo string as he meets Roland’s eye. It’s been over four years but the rawness of his voice is something Roland’s had a hard time forgetting, along with his glassy despairing stare, and that’s made even more pronounced by the flat fluorescent lighting of the hospital ward. 

‘Hey, Tom,’ says Roland in the doorway, like he’s always making long car-rides out to psych wards to see old cases, ‘How you been doing?’ As if the answer isn’t plain as the one written on Tom’s face - he looks terrible, bent over himself with hands and face knotted in pain, three day beard darkening his cheeks. 

‘They won’t let me out ‘less I got a place to go.’ Having Roland here, clearly the last blow to his pride. ‘Motherfuckers took my belt, like as not thinking I’ll be too busy holdin’ up my pants to kill myself.’

‘Is it workin’?’ asks Roland, with the faintest hit of a grin. Tom grimaces, gets to his feet like an old man with his fist tight at the waistband of his corduroys. There’s some paperwork for Roland to sign, a lecture that he mainly ignores, then they’re walking out of there into the open air to Roland’s car. Tom shuffling beside him. It’s been four months since Lori left him and his apartment’s turned oppressive and he’s got nothing better to do on a Friday night, so what the hell, he takes Tom home. It’s not the first time after all. 

‘I ain’t gonna babysit you, y’know,’ Roland says as he changes his bedsheets and pulls down some extra pillows from the closet, ‘But if you do try something, in my house, I’m going to be royally pissed off. So don’t.’ Tom just stands there and watches, something odd in his gaze. Like Roland’s talking Greek, something incomprehensible and rarer in these parts than a white whale (nearest stretch of ocean over four-hundred miles away notwithstanding) but he nods and lets Roland mother him. God knows how long it’s been since someone made the man a meal. 

‘I didn’t ask them to call you,’ Tom says flatly as he watches Roland empty an entire bottle of red wine down the sink. Perhaps it’s for the best; since Lori his drinking has been heavier than normal and joyless to boot. ‘They found your number in my wallet. I told ‘em my parents died.’

‘Coulda fuckin’ called sooner,’ Roland says, alcohol making a final sucking noise in the drain as he turns to face Tom. ‘Maybe it ain’t my place, but you look like a man that could use a friend.’

Tom looks at him for a long moment, then bows his head over his empty plate like he’s praying. Face screwed up, hand to his eyes as if to hold them in their sockets. ‘You’re right,’ he says, and his voice cracks, ‘I need help.’

‘No shit,’ says Roland, and crosses the room to sit by his side.

 

* * *

_ '80 _

‘You believe this shit?’ Wayne says. It’s been three weeks since Woodard went native; Roland supposes that a fractured femur is preferable to a bullet-hole in his skull, but try telling that to the bits of metal holding his leg together. It’s so mindblowingly painful that he can barely focus his partner’s soured words. ‘They’re going to let that family think it’s all solved, wrapped up with a neat fucking bow. It don’t feel right at all, man.’

Roland grits his teeth against the ache. ‘You’d have a medal and promotion by now if you weren’t so painstakin’ly bullheaded. Besides, they’re gon’ come for you some other way. Fire a black detective, probably put the whole civil rights movement back ten years.’ 

‘Fuck you,’ says Wayne but he’s a light-years away, with the case no doubt. ‘I don’t wanna work with a bunch of crooks anyway.’

‘Well, thanks,’ Roland says, layering on the sarcasm. With his gimp leg, he better get used to sitting around being funny cause right now he’s got nothing else to offer. ‘You got to learn to let things go, Purple. Don’t think of anything that’s past save whatever pussy you got last night.’

That gets his attention. Wayne snaps his gaze back to Roland: _bullseye_. ‘When’s y’all gettin’ married?’ Roland asks, grin sharp as a knife, ‘I’d offer to walk you down the aisle, but you might have to carry me instead.’ Wayne shakes his head at this foolishness, and he’s right. It’s foolish talk.

As if Roland has any right to talk about leaving the past in the past when not two weeks later he is standing in Tom Purcell’s driveway on a leg too fucked for use yet, giving the man his card and personal number. Watching him drive away like that was that. Wayne was right to laugh.

 

* * *

_ '80 _

He can’t remember how he first made Tom laugh: something he said as they stood smoking on the back porch - something dark or dumb or both, but to his surprise Tom had chuckled. More a smoker’s cough really, choked of humour, but for a moment the hangdog fretfulness lifted from his face and he seemed younger. Alive. Roland suddenly aware that he likes making Tom Purcell laugh, that he would do it again if just to see his shoulders loosen for a second. But the moment is fleeting. Lucy’s eyes on them from the kitchen window, face creased in disgust. It’s some years before he can make Tom crack a smile again.

 

* * *

_ '87 _

Roland the fast-talker, the hard man, the dry wit, the guy good at his job — he’s so accomplished at being these men that he has everyone around him snowed. And if he’s keeping something back, that doesn’t make him less than the man they think he is. He’s that man too. There isn’t a person that sees through him til Amelia. Her and that fucking book. 

‘I’m only doing this cause you’re Wayne’s wife,’ Roland makes clear as soon as she’s settled herself in his sitting room. ‘Whole thing’s over, far as I’m concerned. Ain’t no use dredgin’ that shit up now. How’s the old fox doin’ anyway?’

Amelia smiles in a tight sort of way and he wonders if she has ever liked him. Too mouthy, too ready to enable whatever shit Wayne wanted to do, too busy doing the job that Wayne could have got if he had stuck around. ‘Wayne’s doing just fine,’ she says in that smooth voice of hers. ‘I know that this is a favour: I’m grateful. Wayne’s got a very… _particular_ way of looking at it all, so a new perspective will be a massive help.’

She gets into it then, and Roland gives her the answers. It’s nothing too hard - _just the facts ma’am -_ nothing that risks his bacon. Afterwards, he thinks that he should have known she was going too easy on him, it’s a nice fucking chat and he’s in control of the narrative until, out of nowhere, she says, ‘I went to see Tom Purcell the other week. I didn’t expect him to be doing so well after everything that happened.’

‘Uh-uh,’ says Roland, because it’s the safest thing to say. ‘Don’t suppose he wanted to talk much, though. I wouldn’t. “After everything that happened.”’

She leans forward, very intent: feline, and not in a sexy way. More a pounce-and-rip-your-head-off way. ‘He didn’t want to talk about it, you’re right. And I didn’t want to push him. What we _did_ talk about, though, was you.’

Her gaze is so insinuating he almost looks away. But he raises his eyebrows instead, as if to say _And? What of it?_

What of it indeed. ‘Is it normal for you to become friendly with victims from various cases?’ asks Amelia, and he thinks she would have been a damn fine lawyer in another life. ‘It seemed like you’ve seen a lot of each other since the case ended.’

‘I don’t go palling around with every sad fuck that gets his kids murdered ’ says Roland. ‘I guess I’ve seen him on and off. Around.’ And he hates himself as he says it: ‘Guy like that you feel sorry for, y’know?’

Her expression doesn’t change as she says, ‘You just see him around? He was wearing your belt.’ 

She was playing with him before she dealt that killing blow, he sees now. There’s some lie waiting to save him involving a pawn shop, and a bunch of identical engraved belt buckles and an improbable coincidence or two but he can’t fucking think of it and his silence is more damning than any wild tale as the seconds stretch out. He feels sick. 

‘I -’ he begins but she knows she’s got him. ‘We’re friends.’

‘I’m not going to put it in the book,’ Amelia says, hands primly clasped in her lap. ‘Don’t worry. I’m not the complete bitch you think I am.’

_I don’t think you’re a bitch_ is the correct, most diplomatic thing to say to the woman who holds his life in her hands, but instead Roland finds himself asking, ‘Wayne? You tell him yet?’

She looks disappointed in him as she gets to her feet and packs away her paper and pen. Like he’s a promising kid that’s just not living up to his potential. ‘I’m not going to tell him either,’ she explains calmly. ‘It’s your business, what you do in your private life.’ And she leaves, him still stricken where he sits with his pulse racing like he’s having a heart attack. _Your business_ he thinks - like the way it’s your business when your kids get murdered; no one would dream of writing a book about _your business_. 

‘Fuck,’ Roland says .

 

* * *

_ '85 _

He knows he’s fucked when he catches himself watching Tom’s hands as the man stands at the top of the room and chokes out his first words to the group after a month of silence and listening. Tom’s fists clenching and unclenching, his frame thrumming with a nervousness that has mellowed substantially since kicking the bottle. His Adam’s Apple bobs the length of his throat. Roland shakes himself as Tom returns to his seat, whispers, ‘Good job, man.’ He has to lean in close to be heard as the next alcoholic takes the stage. 

‘Thanks,’ murmurs Tom, and Roland feels the twitch of his neck and the smell of burnt coffee. Sure, he’s wants Tom to succeed and beat his addiction in a purely platonic way, and he enjoys having him over for coffee and baseball games in a purely platonic way, and he wants to put his mouth on the other man’s mouth in a purely platonic way. He’s only kind of fucked. 

 

* * *

_ '85 _

It’s a long day at the office for Roland even after the last witness breaks down and implicates his friend for second-degree murder. By the time he pulls up outside his house he’s ready to sink a few whiskies and fall asleep on the couch, but there, already parked outside, is Tom. 

‘What’s up?’ says Roland, ducking his head through the driver-side window. Tom reaches into his pocket and pulls out a circular disk, places it in Roland’s palm. Roland holds it up and whistles. ‘Six months already? Damn, I would have gone with you if I’d known.’

Tom laughs and takes back the sobriety chip. ‘I’d of told you if I’d remembered. Never thought I’d get this far without a drink.’ He’s gotten a haircut since Roland’s seen him last, started wearing it brushed back so the curls are only there at the nape of his neck. ‘I was just about to go home, til I saw your car.’

Roland drums his fingers on the window frame. ‘Naw, man. We’re goin’ out now we got something to celebrate. Don’t argue, just drive.’ He gets into the car and they drive, night and cool warm air for miles, something soft and folksy on the radio. Tom in profile, backlit in the streetlight glow. 

‘You can’t be serious,’ chokes Tom when he sees where Roland has directed them. Roland’s already ushering him out of the car and towards the fancy glass doors of a high end restaurant. ‘I ain’t dressed for a place like that.’

Roland stops to look Tom over. His shirt is kinda crumpled, sure, and he could do with a shave but he looks normal. A damn sight better put together than the Tom of six months ago. ‘Easy fix,’ says Roland, and slips the loop of his tie over his head. He holds it out to Tom with a grin. ‘Just put that on. Me, I’ll just pop a few buttons and call it fashion - might help us get seated faster to boot. One the gals workin’ here got a crush on me.’

He unbuttons his collar while Tom adjusts the knot of the tie under his chin. ‘I feel like a prick,’ mutters Tom, fidgeting in the foyer as Roland winks at the server. ‘Like I’m goin’ to a job interview, ‘cept I ain't qualified for any job that needs a tie.’

‘Quit fussin’ and relax,’ Roland says. He used to come here pretty regular with Lori and the staff still recognise him; the table the server gives them his usual table in the corner. They sit, and Roland amuses himself watching Tom; he’s studying the menu so hard a vein is rising in his temple, but he keeps breaking concentration to flick his eyes up at every passing waiter like they might leap on him for his order. On the table, the jug of water breaks out in earthquake ripples as he begins to shake his leg. Roland can afford to watch: he already knows what he wants.

They order. ‘Hold on,’ says Roland to their departing waiter. ‘What’s the most expensive non-alcoholic beverage you got goin’? Bring us two bottles.’ The waiter is non-plussed but accommodating. Tom is still tapping out a wild rhythm with his fingers so Roland lights up a cigarette, passes it over and lights one for himself. Tom breathes in the smoke and lets out a nervous laugh. ‘So, Detective West,’ he says, ‘You come here often?’ 

‘Only on special occasions,’ Roland says, and Tom doesn’t seem to know what to say to that. The moment is mercifully broken by the arrival of their drinks, a sparkling grape concoction that isn’t half bad but that is in no way worth the extortionate price. ‘We’re going to drink all of this fuckin’ juice,’ says Roland with faux seriousness, and stubs out his smoke. ‘I don’t care if we piss ourselves, we got to finish this outta principal.’

The food is good and Tom loosens up as the night goes on - maybe it’s the juice - and as they drive home, Roland is pretty pleased that he didn’t spend the night watching re-runs of _The Dukes of Hazzard_ or even _Hill Street Blues_ , and he actually enjoys that one. His new partner has kids, so he hasn’t gone out after work in a long while. ‘You coming in?’ asks Roland as he lets himself into his house and Tom, having the unfair advantage of an un-crippled leg, makes it to the bathroom first. ‘You bastard!’ hollers Roland, who also desperately needs to relieve himself of the copious amounts of sparkling juice imbibed over the night.

He needs to piss so badly that he goes into the back garden and urinates on a particularly dead clump of daisies. It goes on for what feels like minutes, and then it’s over and he’s tucking himself back in and heading back inside. As he shuts the sliding door Tom turns away from the window, glass of water in his hands. ‘I thought my bladder was goin’ to burst,’ Tom comments.

Roland washes his hands at the sink, close enough to Tom to feel his eyes on him. ‘Me too,’ he says. ‘No way I’d drink that much, even if I was on the booze.’

‘Well, I better get going,’ says Tom, weirdly strained and red-faced. ‘Thanks for the dinner, Detective.’ 

‘Where do you think you’re goin’ with my tie?’

Tom looks down at his chest in surprise, at the tie. Roland closes the distance between them and takes the tip of it in his fingers, then starts to pull open the knot from around Tom’s neck. Tom’s hands are frozen in mid-air, as if he’s forgotten what he was going to do with them. Roland focuses on steadily untying the tie, not on Tom’s dark eyes or his shallow breathing, dragging out the moment as he weighs up the odds. He very much wants to kiss Tom, and he thinks Tom wants to kiss him but there’s always that sick possibility that he’s about to make a terrible mistake. He decides he doesn’t care.

Kissing Tom is odd because, firstly they’re both stone-cold sober: when Roland kisses men, he is usually at least mildly buzzed - at least then there’s plausible deniability. Secondly, after Lori, Tom’s stubble comes as a surprise. They grate on each other like sandpaper and it takes him a second or two to get used to the sensation. Lastly, Tom doesn’t kiss back but he doesn’t break either. Roland pulls back, ready to meet some kind of disgust or horror but it’s not that. 

When he meets Tom’s eyes, the other man looks like he’s just been brained on the head with a skillet. He frowns slightly, like something doesn’t add up and Roland swears he can see the cogs in his brain trying to catch up with the rest of him. ‘We can pretend like that never happened,’ says Roland, his own voice sounding gruff over the blood pounding in his ears but he doesn’t get to finish the sentence as Tom rediscovers his motor functions and pulls him in with both hands so as to better mash their mouths together. It’s sloppy and they knock teeth a few times before finding the right angle, but by God it’s earnest and Roland hasn’t experienced such _wanting_ in years. 

He has one hand in Tom’s hair, the other roaming down to tug at the man’s belt - _his_ belt - and it’s funny, Tom’s so hunched and browbeaten most of the time Roland’s never appreciated that he’s actually taller than he is, but he is. ‘Fuck, man,’ groans Roland as he surfaces for air. ‘Come on then.’ He tugs at Tom’s shirt as they stumble to the bed in which they’ve both slept at one point or another. The tie lies trodden and forgotten on the tiled floor. 

Afterwards, Tom sits naked at the edge of the bed and lights a cigarette. Roland is drifting off into a heady doze, but he hears him ask, ‘How did you know?’

He cracks open an eye and regards Tom’s back, the way his ribs jut out even from behind. ‘I didn’t,’ Roland says, and it’s true. He leans across Tom’s shanks to steal his cigarette and ends up with his head in his lap. ‘I guess I hoped, though.’ 

Tom looks down at him with something like wonder. ‘I ain’t never been that brave,’ he says. Roland closes his eyes.

 

* * *

_ '89 _

‘Thank you for your service.’ It’s a few years after Roland has become _Lieutenant West_ and he’s shaking hands with the state governor like the dutiful public servant that he is.‘I hear you took a bullet in the line of duty,’ continues Bill Clinton, a man with a firm grip. ‘We need more brave men like you at the top.’

‘I don’t know about brave,’ says Roland, thinking of Wayne Hays: most fearless motherfucker he ever knew. ‘All I know is I got shot and now it takes a damn sight more courage to get up on a dance floor than it does to draw my weapon.’

Clinton laughs, and Roland laughs with him. He recently tried to get Wayne transferred to Major Crimes again and the whole thing has left a sour taste in his mouth — seems like Roland West will try, but he won’t risk much. He doesn’t try again until the time comes a year later, when it’s almost easy. He’s a coward.

 

* * *

_ '86 _

‘You know what I think?’ spits Roland, and the words come out mean and hard. ‘I think you’re too cowardly to let yourself be happy, that somehow you don’t deserve it, so you got to wallow in whatever misery you can bring down on yourself. Well, fuck that.’ 

It had started off with some dumb comment. Roland pulling up at the diner door to spot Tom waiting with a smoke in hand, talking to some young thing in matching denim. Seeing Tom stop the kid to hand him some cash, then the kid walking away. ‘You know,’ says Roland, sliding off his shades, ‘In a transaction like that it’s customary for you follow the john to his car, or vice versa. Not just sit there watching the tail trail.’

It’s poor taste he knows, when they haven’t fucked since Tom got serious about going to church but the words are out before he know it. Tom raises his eyebrows and stubs out the cigarette, even though it’s barely halfway through. ‘I got hungry waiting, ate something already.’

‘Wanna go back to yours then?’ asks Roland. ‘I ain’t all that hungry. We can finish that documentary, if you like.’ They go to Roland’s car but the talk isn’t easy so Roland lapses into silence and lets Tom stare out the window with a dark expression. He mentally notes through the dates: anniversaries, birthdays, death days that might have him so dour but comes up with bupkis. Maybe he’s just hurting for a drink.

As usual, Tom’s place is neat and shipshape and a sight too tidy to not look lonely. Roland takes off his jacket and moves to the couch, about to turn on the television when he sees Tom just standing there. ‘What?’

‘How old do you think that boy was back there?’ asks Tom, voice trembling a little. ‘If you had to guess.’

‘I don’t know,’ says Roland. ‘Legal, I reckon.’

Tom is silent for a long moment, a dark cloud brewing behind his eyes. He finally says, ‘If Will was alive he’d be eighteen. Same age as that boy.’ Roland knows he’s walked into the shit on this one, and it’s all his fault. ‘You think I’d want to…with a boy the same age as my son?’ He’s shaking as he says it and Roland comes up to him with his hands raised. 

‘Hey man, I’m sorry. That was a fuckin’ stupid thing to say. Didn’t mean it like that.’

‘Kid said he needed cash so I gave him cash. Wasn’t nothing else.’

‘I believe you.’

‘I turned him down.’

‘I’m sorry. Tom,’ says Roland, trying to get through to him. ‘I’m fucking sorry.’ He gets to his knees with a grimace, bad leg twinging even now, and pulls at Tom’s belt. Gets his fly open before Tom says, ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doin’?’ like he’s gone completely nuts.

‘I’m trying to demonstrate, through acts of service, that I’m fuckin’ sorry, okay?’ grunts Roland. ‘It a crime now for me to want to suck your dick?’

Tom steps back a pace or two and hits the low coffee table. ‘What about me right now is screamin’ _I need my dick sucked_?’ he hisses, the lines in his face sharp. ‘Get up.’ 

‘In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not eighteen. I can suck all the dick I want,’ says Roland levelly from the floor. He doesn’t think he could get up even if he wanted to. ‘Which is a shame, cause I’m only after the one. This ain’t about your kid,’ he continues, and Tom’s face hardens, ‘This is about the sense of shame that church is workin’ so hard on cultivatin’.’ 

He thinks for a moment, that Tom might hit him but then the moment passes. Pale and taut, Tom moves to the couch and sits with his head in his hands, and Roland thinks that he’s gone too far. ‘Get out,’ says Tom flatly, quiet and then again, ‘I want you out.’ 

Roland sees red. And then he says the words: ‘You know what I think? I think you’re too cowardly to let yourself be happy, that somehow you don’t deserve it— so you got to wallow in whatever misery you can bring down on yourself. Well, fuck that.’ He pulls himself up slowly, with too much effort to sell the anger properly but he means every word he says. 

Then Tom’s hand is on his arm, and Roland lets him pull him upright despite himself. Glowering. ‘You think this makes me happy?’ Tom asks, expression unreadable.

‘Well it damn well don’t make you miserable,’ says Roland. It doesn't make him miserable either, not by a long shot. It’s strange and built on an awfulness to big to describe, but what they’ve got is mostly good. Tom kisses him then, a lot angrier than usual and Roland responds with force until they’re both panting, and then somehow Tom twists so that Roland falls heavily onto the sofa for Tom to climb astride. They’re touching nose-to-nose as Tom whispers, ‘Fuck you, Detective West.’

‘Fuck you too, Mr. Purcell,’ replies Roland. Anger all but draining away.

 

* * *

_ '90 _

The broken look Tom gives him across the interrogation table is exponentially worse than anything he could say; he would take the worst of curses, another bullet to his fucking femur. ‘Roland,’ says Tom, and Roland hates himself, the betrayal creeping into his friend’s voice. ‘ _Lieutenant West._ ’

 

* * *

_ '90 _

Harris James takes a lot longer to bleed out than they expect. He keeps drifting in and out of consciousness; Roland takes his pulse twice to see if the fucker’s died already but he clings on to life in the miserable dilapidated barn. Wayne is framed in silhouette against the night sky, distant. Roland shifts the dying man’s head in his lap and James’ eyes flutter open. 

‘Hey, hey now,’ murmurs Roland, wiping the sweat and blood from his pallid brow. Like he wasn’t the one who killed him. 

‘He didn’t want to die either,’ croaks James, and Roland almost doesn’t hear him. ‘But he let me…’ His frame spasms with a rattling cough, twisting him in pain and without thinking about it Roland takes his hand. 

‘What?’ he says, something rising in his gut.

‘The f-father. The queer,’ spits James and his grimace is almost like a smile. ‘He wanted to know…what happened. Tenacious.’ Roland’s grip is vice-like on the man’s hand, as if to crush the dry rage filling his vision. ‘Came willingly. So I told him. And then —’ The dying man raises two shaking fingers to Roland’s chin in a rough facsimile of a gun-barrel. He coughs a bloody cough and his hand slips back down to earth. 

‘ _No_ ,’ says Roland harshly. ‘What did you tell him?’ But James’ eyes are white slits and when he feels the man’s pulse again, it’s barely there. ‘Did you hear?’ he says, turning to Wayne with desperation.

Wayne doesn’t even turn around. ‘Whatever you think you heard, we can’t use it. I got shovels round the back,’ he says, and steps into the night, leaving Roland holding the dead man with tears of frustration shining on his face. 

 

* * *

_ '90 _

When it’s over, the second time, it’s really over. It gets out. 

He’s drunk and bloody and half-unconscious by the time he gets home and he can’t for the life of him understand why Lori won’t let him into the house. 

Walking in to the precinct the next day, heads turn and at first he thinks it’s cause of his battered face— but that’s not it. When he makes it upstairs to his office there’s a whole cavalcade of higher ups milling around looking serious, and he half expects them to arrest him on the spot for first degree murder even though he knows there’s no way they’ve gotten that good at detecting overnight. He makes some crack about being late. It’s not funny, and the police chief is regarding him like he’s just taken a shit on the desk. 

He knows his career is over before they say anything, these serious faced men with their stony faces; a rigged jury with accusal and revulsion in their flat eyes. ‘Lieutenant West,’ says the chief, and his voice is like crushed glass. Roland hears what he’s saying but he’s oddly detached: _So this is what it’s like_ , he thinks as the panel makes their opinion of his “Gross Misconduct” known. We thought you were one of us, their faces say, We thought you red-blooded but you’re nothing more than a jumped-up queer. 

He could deny it. He could, but he knows that someone wants him gone one way or another. He thinks of Tom’s shattered skull, Harris James’ blood spreading across his shirt. ‘All right,’ he says. ‘Consider my resignation fuckin’ tendered.’ Their relief at the averted scandal is palpable. Roland glares at the room at large, says, ‘What I’d like to know is how y’all aim to oust my fuckin’ partner.’

‘Detective Hays handed in his notice this morning,’ says the commissioner. Another box ticked.

‘That’s twice you’ve fucked this case,’ Roland spits. ‘Nothin’ changes, huh? That girl ain’t never goin’ to be found.’ He dumps a box of files out onto the floor and starts to empty his desk drawers. ‘You hypocrites, talkin’ about _my_ misconduct…whole investigation’s been misconducted since the get-go. ’

The rest of them are getting bored with the circus now they’ve gotten him where they want him; the silent ones begin their exit. ‘I’d offer to shake hands but y’all’re probably afraid of gettin’ something catching,’ Roland sneers as they go, with all the good grace of a bull at rodeo. 

To his credit, Commissioner Sloan holds out his hand. As they shake Sloan looks at him and his old-man’s eyes are filled with mild pity. ‘I always thought you were smarter than this, son.’

‘I’m sorry to disappoint,’ says Roland through his teeth. ‘Sir.’ 

There’s eyes on him all the way down to the car park and he’s so furious and hungover that he doesn’t spot Wayne until he’s halfway to his car. Wayne’s putting his own box of things in the trunk of his sedan, and when he meets Roland’s eye there’s no change in his expression, no greeting or warmth. Either he’s pissed from the other night…or he’s heard.

‘Howdy, _partner_ ,’ says Roland. His hip feels strange without his badge and holster, although it’s probably good that he doesn’t have a gun on him right now. He drops his belongings at his feet and rounds on Wayne. ‘You’re really gonna tell me you’re walkin’?’ In response Wayne shuts his trunk and heads to get in the car, but Roland steps up and hisses, ‘I just killed a man for this case — for you — and now you’re, what, goin’ back to secretary school?’

Wayne shrugs but his face is hard as flint. Sizing Roland up like he’s a threat. ‘Plenty I can be good at that don’t involve this shit.’ His gaze flickers dispassionately over the box on the ground, the bruises on Roland’s face. ‘Career man like you, I can’t believe you got so damn stupid. ’ 

‘Like how you dropped the job in ’80 over some pussy?’ Roland says. ‘Guess I been takin’ notes on self-fuckin’-sabotage.’

‘That’s my wife you’re talking about, asshole.’ 

Roland asks, ‘Did you tell ‘em?’ 

‘Tell them what, exactly? That a high ranking police lieutenant, my damn partner, has been fucking a major suspect in a case for God knows how long? Yeah, right after I accused you of murder and showed them the body.’

‘All that shit you said bout Tom the other day, you just pullin’ out of your ass?’ 

Wayne clipped anger stops short. ‘You’re sayin’ it’s not a put-up job?’ He frowns and says, ‘That means you — and him — were, uh…’ and Roland has no patience to explain the whole sordid history of his sexual proclivities, that he’s had men and women both and liked them just fine. ‘Never got the impression that you were even _like_ that.’ 

‘Like _what,_ ’ asks Roland, and his deliberate belligerence snaps Wayne out of it.

‘Oh, I think you know what I’m thinkin’,’ he says, parroting Roland’s words from the woods back at him. It’s a low fucking blow, no matter how well deserved. Roland balls his hands into fists.

‘Yeah?’ says Roland, voice rising. ‘Enlighten me.’

‘I don’t think so. In fact, I think you better take a step back and let me get in my goddamn car. Maybe all this is for the best, y’know, movin’ on,’ says Wayne as he makes to open the door to his car.

It’s all wrong coming from this man’s mouth. ‘Who got to you?’ Roland growls, grabbing Wayne’s sleeve and Wayne rounds on him cobra-fast.

‘Get your hands off me, motherfucker,’ Wayne spits. It’s so harsh and unlike any words the man has aimed at him; Roland flinches back at Wayne’s raised fist despite himself.

Why did he expect Wayne to act any different? _Because he’s your friend_ , says a small part of his heart that’s not been utterly destroyed by the past few days. ‘Come on,’ says Roland with a hollow bravado under which his voice just might break. ‘Some old queer ain’t no match for Purple Haze.’

Wayne’s fist trembles in the air for a moment, then he drops his arm. The heat of his voice has gone. He sounds tired. ‘I don’t believe in kicking a dog when it's down,’ he says with finality, and gets into his car. This time around Roland doesn’t try to stop him. And so his only real friend in the world leaves him standing with the detritus of his life in the Arkansas P.D. car park, and doesn’t look back.

That evening Roland ditches the bikers and chooses a fight in the police bar, hits the first motherfucker to laugh something under his breath as Roland walks in. He gets the shit beat out of him. ‘Pussies,’ he coughs through a mouthful of his own bloody teeth as he’s knocked to the sidewalk for the second night running. ‘Fuckin’ pussy-cat boys. Didn’t your mommas ever tell you not to pull out til you hear her scream?’ One of them brings down a foot, hard, on his bad leg and Roland howls at the sky above.

If only they’d stomped his head in — then the pain, at least, would finally be gone.

 

* * *

_ '88 _

There’s a long pause as Roland sways taking in the visitor before him. He’s nicely buzzed and sluggish with too much food and it’s not a good time to have Tom Purcell looking so down and out on his doorstep, not with Lori and a bunch of dinner guests inside his new house.

‘You, uh, want to come in?’ asks Roland, right  as Tom says: ‘Lucy’s dead.’

The good humour drains from Roland’s face. ‘Shit, man. When, what happened?’ He pulls the door behind him and steps onto the porch. Tom shivers under his shirt even though it’s a pretty mild night; the kind of night that convinces suburban families that summer has come at last. The air is fragrant with the smell of barbecue. ‘Hey now,’ Roland says and puts a steadying hand on the man’s trembling shoulder. 

‘Who’s that?’ comes Lori’s voice from the hall, chipper as a salesgirl. It sounds wrong. ‘We’re going to cut the _you-know-what_ in a bit, and Frank and Evelyn can’t stay too long afterward.’ How inconsequential it suddenly sounds.

‘Yeah,’ calls Roland. ‘Hold off for a while, okay?’ He takes Tom’s arm and they descend the garden path together to Tom’s car. The neighbourhood is quiet and it’s just the two of them in the street. 

‘She overdosed two days ago in Vegas. Just got the call,’ mutters Tom. ‘I didn’t know where else to go…Nice house, by the way.’ Tom rubs his face and frowns at Roland. ‘Is it your _birthday?_ ’

Roland shrugs. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he says, embarrassed. The idea of bringing Tom into his home when Lori and their painfully successful and bland friends are there is ludicrous, but he can’t leave the man alone either. ‘Time stops for no man, and all that.’

There’s a moment as they share each other’s space, unsure where to go in the conversation: commiseration or congratulation? Tom’s eyes are red-rimmed as he looks at Roland, but the fondness in them is genuine and painful. Roland wants to grab him and take him to the guest bedroom, where he can sleep and be safe from phone-calls and prying eyes but things are different. And yet the same. Tom looks over his shoulder, around at the street and the darkened windows with the instinct of a trapped fox — and the coast must be clear, because he leans in a presses a kiss onto Roland’s lips. 

Roland feels his breath hitch. Tom is already pulling back; to the observer it could have been a whisper, a drunken stagger, but to do something like that in the open _outside his house_ is so reckless it makes his palms sweat. And yet he wants to do it again. ‘Happy birthday, Lieutenant,’ says Tom with the briefest smile, and gets into his car.

It’s the wrong thing, letting him go with no company save for the ghost of his newly dead wife but Roland is temporarily struck dumb. So he watches the taillights of Tom’s car disappearing down the street. Rubs his bottom lip with his thumb, like he can still feel the pull of Tom’s skin on his. He doesn’t know then that it’s the last time.

 

* * *

_ Before _

‘Sometimes I wish none of it ever happened. That nothin’ I did led me to bein’ father of those kids. But it’s a meanness to say I wish they’d never been born,’ says Tom in the quiet hours between true darkness and dawn, the right time for admitting such things. His voice reverberates in the hollow of Roland’s ribcage. ‘Ain't true. And besides, if none of it had happened…’ 

Roland knows what he means. Without any of it, it’s unlikely Tom would be lying with his head on Roland’s chest, the two of them tangled together in a mess of blankets on the scuffed floor of Roland’s apartment. The moon, flat and silver as a nickel, casting a shaft of pale light onto their legs and feet. Roland hums and Tom puts out a knobbled hand to feel the rhythm of his breathing, his heart. 

‘No use to that kind of talk,’ says Roland into the scruff of Tom’s hair. ‘We are where we are…Ain’t nothin’ to be done about the rest.’

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments appreciated!


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